I've had the Leica M9 (I use it with the 50mm Summicron IV, the only piece of Leica glass I possess at present) for six months.
I have to say that it is the best camera I've ever used - and I've used a Nikon D7000 and Canon 5DII (both of which are great cameras and also a lot cheaper than the Leica).
Now, the M9 has its faults: it's hugely expensive (£5K for the body only), ISO performance above 800 is woeful, the rangefinder/manual focus system takes a bit of getting used to and the rear LCD is utter crap. It's not weather-proofed. And if you want to do sports or wildlife photography, forget it. Macro is a pain (but can be done). Even a fast-moving child presents a real challenge! You can't use a lens longer than 135mm, or ideally, 90mm. And you're mostly stuck with primes, so forget about the zoom lenses DSLR users are used to. And focussing in low light can be tricky.
But the positives far outweigh the negatives. The build quality is, in this day and age, is astonishing - no plastic here, this is brass and magnesium, with a superb attention to detail (M9s are hand-built in Germany). The camera is tiny - in fact it's the smallest full-frame sensor camera in the world. It looks beautiful. It feels great in your hands. The viewfinder is excellent. You can take it out without fear - nobody apart from a camera buff will know what it is, as most people just assume it's an ancient point-and-shoot. You get a free copy of Adobe's superb Lightroom 3 bundled in with the camera. It shoots in DNG, rather than a proprietary raw formula, so it should work with pretty much any processing software.
The most important controls - aperture, shutter speed, ISO and white balance (although I shoot in raw so I just adjust WB on the computer) - are all easily accessible without delving down into complex menus. The M9's menu is a joy to use, simple and intuitive and a gazillion times better than the over-featured menus of Canon, Nikon and the Fuji X100. In fact, the M9 generally is incredibly easy to use once you get used to it - I still haven't looked at the instruction manual! It's a camera YOU control (being completely manual) rather than a camera that does everything for you. Exposure setting via the inbuilt meter is good - accurate although not always totally foolproof.
Most importantly, the M9 takes fantastic pictures. You are not buying just a camera, you are buying into a lens system - the best there is (and the M9 will work with 99.9% of Leica lenses made since 1954!). Pictures taken with a Leica M have a unique quality about them, especially when shot with the lens wide open - a dreamy quality; and subjects in focus are razor sharp, separated from their backgrounds to such an extent that pictures appear almost 3-D. Colours are rendered beautifully and vividly and photos usually require very little processing. Bokeh is to die for.
And of course the M9 is great fun to shoot with - it's addictive. You'll find yourself taking it - or wanting to take it - everywhere with you.
Not for everyone, and very expensive, but a wonderful tool for taking photographs. It won't make you a better photographer but you will take better photographs. You'll be forced to think about exposure, composition. You'll find yourself stepping back and forward rather than moving your zoom. It's fun and rewarding. The focussing system takes a bit of getting used to but you'll be getting sharp pictures very quickly.
Don't think I'll ever go back to a DSLR except in special situations.
Recommended if you have the money. It's a good investment - this is a camera for life with a lens system that is probably the best in the world.
